On Saturday friends stopped by.  German friends from the old neighborhood.  Kai had called ahead to make sure we were home, and he offered to bring the cake.  Sure!  I love cake.

I assumed the cake was for dessert.  Silly me.  Never assume.  Never, ever, assume with Germans.  The cake was for kaffeetrinken (coffee drinking).  Kaffeetrinken is around 3 pm, and usually cake is served then. Oooooooh.  I wondered why he was so insistent on coming at 15:00.  He wasn’t insistent, I was slow. That is coffee & cake hour.  That is the normal hour for friends to drop by.

In Holland we have koffieuurtje around 10 am.  Also with cake.  This is the normal hour for friends to drop by.  Here it’s taken me 3+ years to learn Germans do the same thing, just at a different hour.  We finally enjoyed some afternoon coffee, and cake. A little later than 15:00 because we spent about an hour staring at each other.  Me, wondering why they had to come so early for dinner.  Them wondering why I wasn’t serving the cake they so thoughtfully brought.  Luckily they are good friends, and they finally explained and we all had a good laugh at the cultural misunderstanding.

Of course after cake & coffee at 16:00, no one is that hungry for dinner.  Thankfully it was the first beautiful, sunny, day in weeks and we all stepped out for a walk in our “backyard”.  Our new house is right on the Schwarzwald (black forest).  It is a gorgeous place to walk and we greatly enjoyed the view, the warm weather and laughing with friends.

As the sun went down, it got much, much colder.  Still, Tess had to stop and  admire the setting sun.

06MAR13